August 22, 2017

Whoa! so many weddings!! I'd have to say though that the one I am the most excited for is the one happening THIS FRIDAY!!!! ugh i cannot wait to see pictures!!! I am just so so so excited!! so last tuesday we found out about transfers and decided to do something super fun with elder smith and sister nowlon before they left so we played lazer tag! It was so fun, if i leave st johns after this transfer (which i hope doesn't happen haha) that will be my last request. Thursday night we picked up sister Fernandez from the airport, I have already learned so much from her and I just have this new excitement for missionary work. She is so diligent and I'm grateful that she'll be my trainer for the last six weeks. She was born in the Philippines but was raised in Toronto. She's very calm and collected and know's her purpose:)   She does't have her licence and so I will have to do all of the driving for the next 6 weeks haha I have seriously learned how to get around st johns better than lethbridge and i've been here for 6 weeks... and I've been driving around lethbridge all of my life haha.

Robbie's baptism was on Saturday and oh my that was a gong show hahaha. It was suppose to start at 3 oclock and 3 o'clock rolled around and NO ONE was there but 5 members hahaha. We were calling and texting robbie but he wasn't answering and we were calling and texting the elders who were picking up ederson who was preforming the baptism but they weren't answering. In the end, robbie's girlfriend's plane came in late and  his phone was dead so he couldn't text us haha, and the elders had forgot ederson so they had to turn around and get him. so the baptism started 40 minutes late. the funniest part was the actual baptism though haha poor ederson. this was his first baptism and so he was super nervous but he said everything fine but then when he went to dunk robbie he forgot to put high right hand on robbies back. it looked like he was drowning robbie hahaha robbie came up all out of breathe and couldn't get his footing and ederson was just staring at his right hand like "what have I done" haha so we did the baptism again and that time everything went well. sister nowlon got to stay for the baptism so we actually didn't drop her off at the airport until yesterday morning. So yesterday was the first day where it was just the 2 of us. the day flew by, we were so busy and we found so many potential investigators and got appointments with them for this week which is awesome!!! 

I've set a goal to read the entire book of mormon this transfer and so yesterday I started with the introduction. Everyone here has so many trials and deaths and just so many hard things that they've gone through and are going through and a lot of the time I find myself at a loss of what to say. I know that just because we live the gospel that doesn't mean that our lives are going to be super easy and that we aren't going to experience trails still, and just because we know and believe in the plan of salvation doesn't mean we still don't feel pain from missing our loved ones. In the third paragraph of the introduction though it helped me to finally grasp what it is the gospel does for us in. "The doctrines of the gospel...tell men what they must do to gain PEACE in this life and eternal salvation in the life to come," what the gospel does for us in this life is it gives us peace. It doesn't take away our trails, but it gives us this inner peace that we can keep with us through whatever we face. no matter how crazy life gets we can always have a sense of peace. I few days ago sister fernandez was telling me how at a training from elder ball they were talking about how you know you are feeling the spirit. Satan has his ways of mimicking happiness and excitement but something that satan can't mimic is peace, because he's never felt peace. President Pratt challenged us to study a gospel topic for 15 minutes for 2 weeks and I think I want to study peace. I hope you all have a great week and no matter how crazy it may be (especially with the wedding haha) that you will be able to recognize that inner peace that comes when we live the gospel<3

love sister wood